


Take a Step

by kishuku



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:28:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25490005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kishuku/pseuds/kishuku
Summary: Graduation literally mean to take a step or a measurement of degree.Nile learns to "take steps" when it comes to her immortal life and let things go, but somethings are easier said than done. Nicky and Joe tag along as shoulders to cry on.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 133





	Take a Step

Nile leaned down and peered through the rifle scope, looking for her target.

Amongst the red brick buildings with white trim milled hundreds of university graduates dressed in black gowns, arms full of flowers, and some with Mylar balloons bobbing above their heads to help their family members find them. They were all chatting happily, hugging one another, and surrounded by friends and family. The entire procession made its way sluggishly down the center walk of the campus where eventually individual departments started to break away for their own graduation ceremonies in front of their respective buildings.

Nile ground her teeth in frustration. Where was he?

As the parade of graduates thinned, she straightened up with a grunt of frustration and slung the rifle stand over her shoulder. She was going to have to change positions if she was going to have a clear view of Thornton Hall, which housed the engineering departments.

A few minutes later she was all set up again, low against a roof with the scope in front of her eye. After a few seconds, Nile spotted Nicky casually standing under a shady tree, a bouquet of flowers in one arm and scanning the crowd as though he were a visiting friend.

Then Nile spotted him.

When she’d left for Afghanistan her brother had already hit his full height, but hadn’t filled out his skinny teenage frame yet. Now Jamal Freeman was a tall, broad-shouldered, good-looking black man with a goofy grin and a pair of glasses that when he was a kid made him look nerdy, but now Nile thought the glasses made him appear scholarly. She smiled as she proudly watched him move toward the engineering building in his black robes and cap.

Jamal paused and turned back to pull his mother towards a front row seat for the smaller departmental graduation. Nile’s heart jumped as though it were trying to burst out her mouth through her throat. She couldn’t see her mother’s face since she was facing Jamal, saying something Nile couldn’t hear. Her mother’s hair was grayer, the light strands of hair weaved neatly into her box braids. As she waved her hands while she talked, Nile sensed her mom’s spirit was still unbroken. Nile wanted so badly to hug her family, to feel her brother’s arms around her shoulders and to wrap her arms around her mother’s warmth and laughter.

And a twinge of guilt pinged its way through Nile. It wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t fair that her mother had lost her husband in combat and now she’d also lost a daughter in combat.

Nile had been officially killed in action (KIA) four and a half years ago now. Copley arranged for a Marine representative to go explain to her family how she’d been initially MIA then KIA after a convoy had been attacked. Her body hadn’t been recovered, so her personal affects were the only items the representative had been able to present to her grieving family. This had all happened during her brother’s senior year in high school and while he was waiting to hear from universities about scholarships and admissions. Ironically, when she’d joined the Marines she’d promised him she’d help him pay his way through college. Nile just hadn’t thought she’d have to die to achieve that.

Her death had paid out a $400,000 USD Servicemember Group Life Insurance (SGLI) as well as another 1.5 million from a private life insurance Copley had magicked into existence. In addition to erasing records the man was adapt at creating false ones. She’d also been posthumously promoted to corporal from private first class and her family had received another 6 months of salary from the US Marines as well as her unused leave and an end of the year bonus. Copley had guaranteed she needn’t worry about her family financially, at least for a while.

Her phone rang.

Nile answered it and patched it through to her earbud. It was Nicky and he put his phone on speaker, she could hear all the background noise and the speeches as the graduation commenced. Later Joe moved through crowd, gave Jamal a handshake and congratulations, then disappeared back into the crowd of well-wishers. Nile traced with her eyes the happy confused expression on her brother’s face after the interaction. Someone must’ve asked him if he knew Joe, because Jamal shrugged and laughed, shaking his head.

Nile Freeman got to watch her brother graduate from the University of Virginia with honors in civil engineering, crouched on a rooftop, looking through a rifle scope, and listening to the proceedings through her phone. It was the best day and it was the worst day.

~~

Nile had been tempted to attend her own funeral four years ago, but Andy had been right and it would’ve been a stupid thing to do. It would’ve been like twisting a knife in her gut to see the devastation her death had brought on her family. In fact, Andy told her it would be best if Nile stayed away from Chicago for the next 100 years. Which still seemed insane when Nile thought about it. A hundred years?

But a few years ago, after things with Quynh had settled down, Nile had snooped around online and saw that her brother was attending the University of Virginia and the idea of attending his graduation just gnawed at her. Finally, a few months ago Nile had brought it up.

Surprisingly, she wasn’t told she was being stupid. Again.

Nile had never been to Charlottesville or anywhere in Virginia for that matter, so there was less risk of anyone recognizing her. In fact, Nicky and Joe had offered to go with her. She suspected they were there to babysit her and make sure she didn’t reveal herself to her family in a pique of emotion and nostalgia.

After the ceremony the students split up, there were afternoon lunches, dinners, and dances to change and get ready for after all the pomp and circumstance. Nile followed her family with the scope until they disappeared in the trees on their way to the parking lot.

“Nile?” Nicky’s voice piped in through her earpiece. “We’re going to come pick you up.”

“Roger that,” she said as she started disassembling the rifle stand. She packed it all into a backpack which she slung over her shoulder like any college student and headed downstairs to wait for Nicky and Joe.

~~

They were staying in an old deserted country house between Charlottesville and DC, it was too risky to stay in the college town where Nile could still stumble across her mother and brother during the celebrations. She resented it, the caution and how she felt as though she was committing a crime, but she swallowed it down because she knew it was necessary. Whenever Nile felt herself becoming too angry about it she just had to remember the bloody samples, bits and pieces of Nicky and Joe, sitting in tiny tubes and jars in the lab she’d seen when she’d burst in to rescue them from Merrick.

“Dinner is served!” Nile announced, it was her turn to cook and she was by far the worst out of everyone. In her defense, she didn’t have several hundred years of practice.

“What is it?” Joe asked.

“Mac and cheese.”

Nicky groaned, “How you Americans treat pasta is a travesty!” However, he still scooped a spoonful from the glass baking pan and put it on his plate.

“Hey, you should appreciate that I made it the way my mama taught me. None of that boxed stuff,” Nile protested as she grabbed some salad.

“Or appreciate that it isn’t pineapple on pizza. We are in America, after all,” Joe quipped.

Nicky laughed, “Are you two trying to destroy my appetite before I eat Nile’s cooking?”

Then the three of them fell into a companionable silence as they ate, Joe briefly musing if the mac and cheese would be improved with goat’s cheese. Nile stuck out her tongue and made a face, she liked cheese but goat’s cheese went too far.

After cleaning up Nile sat down with her phone and stared at the photo of her mom and Jamal. She missed them so damn much.

Nicky watched her from the other couch, after a moment, he pulled his phone out and held it out to her. “Here.”

Shot from his spot beneath the tree was a photo of Nile’s mom and Jamal posing together, in their hands they each held a framed photo. Nicky’s photo was too grainy because he’d been too far away, but Nile knew the photos were of her and her father in their formal uniforms. A family portrait.

Nile felt two fat tears roll down her cheeks. She scrubbed them away.

“Do you ever miss your families?” she asked, still staring at hers but wanting to change the focus a little.

“Well….” Joe made that face he did when he didn’t particularly know what to say.

“Sometimes,” Nicky filled in the silence. “Our families were… complicated. I’m certain they cared for us as much as they were capable of.”

“My family _loves_ me,” Nile said fiercely. “And I still miss my father even though he’s gone.” She swiped over to an old family photo she had on her phone. Jamal was a toddler and Nile was still a chubby cheeked little girl just starting to hit her growth spurt. It had been taken during the last Christmas her father had spent with them.

“You know after my father died my mom decided to stay in Chicago. She’s originally from the South. I think it would’ve been easier for her to move back, widowed with two young kids.” Nile traced her mom’s face with her thumbnail, “But I think we stayed in Chicago so we could be close to my dad, that’s where he’s buried.”

That was also technically where she was buried too, an empty coffin next to her father, paid for by the US Marines.

“I joined the Marines because of him,” she showed Nicky and Joe the family photo, then the photo of her father in uniform. “I was able to because of my mom,” Nile let out a short bark of laughter. “I was such an angry kid. She kept me out of serious trouble. I was angry my dad wasn’t around and I was angry at how unfair the world was, I wanted to fight anyone and everyone all the time, especially anyone who hinted he was a deadbeat dad who’d left us on our own.”

“You’re a loyal daughter,” Joe murmured as he took a seat next to Nicky and slipped an arm around his waist. “If my father had been as honorable as yours, I would also defend him with everything I had.”

“Can you send it to me?” Nile asked as she handed Nicky back his phone.

He nodded and did.

“So back to London tomorrow morning?” Nile asked.

Another nod, this time from Joe.

“Do you think this is going to be the last time I ever see them?” she asked softly.

“I doubt it, but it will be some years before you can again,” Nicky reassured her.

~~

The phlebotomist startled Nile as the woman slipped into the darkened patient room in the pre-dawn hours.

“Oh!” the nurse was equally startled. “Patient visiting hours aren’t until—“

“I know, I’m sorry,” Nile interrupted her in a whisper, trying not to disturb her mom. “It’s… She’s my mom and I… It’s just that I’m... I’m shipping out in a few hours and I wanted to say good-bye.” She kept her eyes down, her military cap tipped low over her face.

The woman softened as she took in the uniform the young woman wore, “Well, then I’ll go check on the other patients and come back later for your mom.”

“Thank you,” Nile whispered fervently.

The phlebotomist slipped back out, closing the door softly behind her.

“Nile.”

Nile looked down to see her mom gazing back up at her. She’d been battling cancer for months and she had a drug-glazed expression as she stared back at her daughter.

“I’m so happy to see you,” Nile’s mom wheezed. “You haven’t changed a bit, have you?”

Nile swallowed, the gulp loud in the silent room, “You don’t age after you die, Mama.” It was sort of the truth. She leaned over and scooped her hands under her mom’s shoulders and held her. Nile hugged her mom, she clung to her mom, and cradled her as she struggled not to cry. “I’ve missed you too, Mama.”

“I’ve missed you both very much. It’ll be soon, baby. Soon I’ll get to be with you and your daddy,” her mom murmured as she stroked Nile’s braids.

Two fat tears rolled down Nile’s cheeks into her mother’s hair because she knew that wasn’t true.

The phlebotomist didn’t see the young woman when she returned to Mrs. Freeman’s room to draw blood. The patient was asleep with a wistful smile on her face, resting peacefully after the visit.

Misty Vanita Freeman passed away a week later on July 10th 2046 with her son and his family at her side.


End file.
